Devils | ONC 2023 SHORTLISTER

six

Kaz hadn't given any response to Elena. But she could see the tenseness of his jaw. She could tell he was angry, maybe at her maybe at Nella maybe at himself, she couldn't tell. She didn't care. She deserved the anger. She had ignored his warning to return to the compound and now she has no memory. A crucial piece of information was gone with it.

There has to be some way to bring back her memory, right? Something that could trigger it? Not just bits and pieces but the whole lot. Maybe, just maybe, if she went to where it all started...

"I have to get to where I woke up."

"Huh?" Kaz raised an eyebrow at her.

"That place where I woke up. If I go there maybe I can find something."

"Do you know where it is?" He asked.

"I know the way there from that motel, but..." Elena shrugged, tucking her hair, which had come loose during the whole fiasco, behind her ears.

"What did it look like?" Kaz asked. "The place where you woke up?"

"Sort of an apartment building, I think," She squints, trying to recall. "Half of it was collapsed—"

"I know the place," Kaz said. "The only problem is we can't drive through the Rift."

"We can find something else in the Lost City, right?" Elena asked, leaning forward and resting her chin on the back of the passenger seat.

"Hope so," Kaz shrugged, pushing his bangs away from his forehead. That was when Elena noticed the four bloody crescents in his palm. Why?

"Hey, Kaz, can I ask you something?" Elena asked cautiously.

"If it's about what happened back there in the diner, then the answer is no," His face was stoic; Not giving away any kind of emotion. She dropped the subject.

They dumped the truck a bit far from the Rift. Kaz took the keys with him, in case Nella and her henchman returned for it. The trip back through the Rift was the same as before, except they were spat out onto solid, rocky ground instead of grass. Elena took a page off Kaz's book and swore loudly, spitting out a mouthful of sand. 

"I hate this thing," Kaz grumbled next to her, brushing sand off his clothes. "It makes me feel like something ate me and threw me up. Gross."

Elena couldn't help the small laugh that escaped her chapped lips. She felt exhausted, not just tired—like there were heavy metal cubes hanging from her limbs, weighing them down. She wanted to lie down and sleep. But she had a mission on hand; One she had messed up. She won't mess it up again.

"It's times like this I wish our people had a bus service here," Kaz glared into the distance. "How the hell are we supposed to find a car?"

He looked worn out; Elena noted. His pale skin had turned even paler, a sort of sickly paleness. His powers had taken a toll on him and now they had travelled through the Rift twice in a row, which was not pleasant. Elena knew she didn't look any better either. She could feel a dull throbbing starting behind her eyes, making it hard to look at the sun glaring down at the Lost City below.

"Maybe we'd have to steal again," Elena suggested a bit reluctantly. Stealing from Nella Alden was one thing; Stealing from an innocent, unsuspecting citizen was another thing.

Kaz frowned. "Maybe we can pull some strings. People know the Devils—They fear it."

Elena didn't want to be feared by anyone but what choice did she have? For whatever stupid reason she couldn't remember, she had joined the Devils and here she was: Stuck on a mission she had messed up with no memory of anything.